Athol Fugard to Be Inaugural Residency One Playwright at Signature Center

The Signature Theatre Company has named Athol Fugard as its inaugural Residency One playwright for the company’s new home, Signature Center, which will open in February, 2012. Residency One is Signature’s core one year playwright-in-residence program that produces a series of plays from the body of work of one accomplished writer. Titles, dates and directors for the Athol Fugard series will be announced at a later date.

Fugard, who is also being honored this year with a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement, is a South African playwright, director and actor, whose plays include Blood Knot, Boesman and Lena, Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act, Sizwe Banzi is Dead, The Island, A Lesson From Aloes, ‘Master Harold’ …and the Boys, The Road to Mecca, My Children! My Africa!, Sorrows and Rejoicings, Exits and Entrances, and The Train Driver. Fugard will be the first non-American playwright to receive a Signature season.

Signature Center is a new 74,000 square foot facility at 480 West 42nd Street near 10th Avenue, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry and featuring three theatres, two rehearsal spaces and administrative offices all on one level and connected by a shared lobby with a café and bookstore.

Signature Center will feature three unique programs: the continuation of Residency One, the program Signature Theatre Company is best known for, which is a one year residency for a playwright with a major body of work; the expansion of the Legacy Program, which is a homecoming for past Signature Playwrights-in-Residence with a production of a premiere or signature play; and the introduction of Residency Five, which will encourage the creation of a body of work by guaranteeing multiple playwrights three productions over the course of a five-year residency. These three programs combined will allow Signature to produce up to nine shows a year and provide an artistic home for up to eleven playwrights each season. The Legacy Program and Residency Five playwrights will be announced at a later date.

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